


As Life Goes By

by Merfilly



Series: Wintergreen DCU Free For All Table [3]
Category: DCU (Comics)
Genre: Gen, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-21
Updated: 2014-03-21
Packaged: 2018-01-16 11:33:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,376
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1345933
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merfilly/pseuds/Merfilly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Their lives changed with the serum, divorces, and Titans, but they are still a pair.</p>
            </blockquote>





	As Life Goes By

Markov terrified the man watching the 'practice' in ways he had never known fear. The sheer amount of mental energy reaching out, ripping the earth up and throwing it through the air was frightening enough. But the tremors she raised in the use of it? Those reminded him that this...child, albeit of a very questionable mind, held the power of the very earth itself truly at her beck and call.

There was only terror, for what Slade was unleashing on the world by training her, by harnessing her. And there was fear for Slade himself, because such dangerous tools always turned on their handlers.

* * *

Settling all the plans in motion depended on so many factors, Wintergreen acknowledged. He had to blind the men he was using to his true aims. He had to be strong enough to keep them from murdering him in his sleep, scant though that was. 

He was purposefully lost in a prison, with neither trial nor recourse. Breaking free was his sole goal, to get back to Slade. The only reason he could see for this unlawful imprisonment was to separate Slade from one of his few remaining allies, which meant trouble.

Wintergreen was dead set on not letting it be fatal to either of them.

`~`~`~`~`

All Wintergreen wanted right now was sleep. He was far too damn old to be dealing with the effort of staying alive quite so intimately. Two months into this misbegotten prison stay, and he was feeling every bit of it.

From keeping the toughs cowed in fear...difficult to do, but once he'd beaten back the big guy with the weight bar, he'd had breathing room...to making sure the sneaky ones didn't finish off the job of hiding him away for all eternity, it had been a rough run.

Tomorrow, he knew, his plan would come to fruition. He'd be out of this hell, on his way to freedom and Kenya. Then, once he found his old friend, it would be safe to sleep again.

`~`~`~`~`

Seventy bloody, be damned, benighted days. Wintergreen had had more than enough of this folly of separation. He had gotten hold of a newspaper, knew just what his 'vacation' in prison had set Slade up for. If he knew Slade...well, few knew him quite the way Wintergreen did.

He made his way from Kitale to the house, or where the house was being rebuilt, with the fresh fervor of coming home. It would be so good to finally let his guard back down. He was an old man, dammit, and he was in no shape to prove to prison toughs that he was their better like that. Why couldn't he just enjoy the leisurely life and finish Slade's memoirs?

The thought of his old friend pushed another smile to his lips, and he picked up the pace down the drive where the taxi had dropped him. He heard the calls of the workers, and then a sound that swiped his smile. His friend was in full temper, unleashing it on some man that had run afoul of him...and Wintergreen needed only to hear a bit to realize who his friend was truly angry with.

As Slade raised his hand to strike the man again, Wintergreen reached them and interceded. His hand closed around the upraised fist, and the man that could damn near bend steel, who had broken people with his bare hands, simply stopped in mid-motion, acceding to the dominance of the friendship that had existed for decades.

Yes, Wintergreen was home, and his memoirs would wait a bit; his dearest friend needed him.

* * *

There had been one too many times of Slade going in, not even giving Wintergreen the opportunity to keep up. Dammit, he might have gotten old, but his mind more than made up for any slowness of the body. How many times had Wintergreen's mere presence turned the tide?

The old Brit huffed slightly to himself. //Face it old chap, he thinks too quickly, moves so blasted fast. It's no wonder he treats you just like you are...old and growing feeble.// 

He looked at his revolver, carefully laid out for a good cleaning, then over at the much mended vest he wore on all his runs at the side of the world's greatest mercenary.

"Time to cut loose the glory days," he muttered, resolving that from here on, he would not get in the way by tagging along.

* * *

Slade's temper was legendary in its strength, Wintergreen knew, but the man's ability to hold it was well-matched for it. The older man had watched him hold back a number of flares at superior officers that could have got him court-martialed. It was that tendency, with the following explosion in the privacy of Wintergreen's tent that had made the Brit admire the young man's discipline of himself. The first time it had happened, Wintergreen had listened, offered him a drink, and then offered what advice he could. It set a pattern that would hold for the rest of their careers.

Sometimes, though, Wintergreen found himself wondering what Slade would have been like without that discipline and the relief valve of having him to talk to in unguarded fashion.

Meeting Wade DeFarge answered those thoughts, leaving Wintergreen thankful that Slade was the man he was. The world could not have handled two men of that skill and unbridled anger. 

Slade being Slade had little to say on the matter of his half brother. In the wake of Wade's murderous rage, many details came to light, such as Wade's manipulation of Bill Walsh, the H.I.V.E, and the tragic events leading to Grant's death. Wintergreen was appalled by that anger turned so viciously out at blood kin, and puzzled at it in the dark nights when he could not sleep.

When he finally thought through it all, it left Wintergreen doubting in humanity once again. That any man, out of spite for a more favored brother, could go to the lengths Wade had, made the entirety of humankind look far more perilous in regards to its survival.

* * *

As Wintergreen signed off from the computer, he glanced at the clock once more. He swore it had only been midnight when last he looked, but now the clock blinked to the witching hour.

He had expected Slade to call in as safe a good hour beforehand. //Even granting him plenty of leeway for extraction and safe distance, he truly should have called in by this point, to let me know the job is done.// The thought set uncomfortably in his heart and mind.

He started to turn the computer back on; if Slade was over due, it would be easier to reach Jesse, their communications and information specialist, by messenger. She would have turned all other resources toward tracking Slade, and whatever enemies were delaying him. 

Waiting for the machine to finish its infernally slow boot-process, Wintergreen had too much time to regret his age, too much time to wish he were younger. He missed running with Slade, being there in the midst of it all. Then, he never had to worry over missed call-ins. He had been right there, sharing the danger.

Jesse popped a message to him as soon as he had the program open. _Boss_ , as she called him, _is safe, but delayed by the presence of a hero in the area._

He could feel the relief creeping over his soul, and he shut it back down.

Both phones, though, accompanied him to rest.

* * *

He had tried to cope with the latest curve ball life had thrown him.

Slade Wilson was in his 20s, amnesiac, and rejecting everything about Deathstroke the Terminator's life.

Including him.

Wintergreen readied for the night, feeling too old, too tired to pretend to have a leash on how this was affecting him. His soul felt cold, his body worn out beyond use, and his mind too slow to try and find a way out of the fox trap he was caught in.

When his chest grew tight, he honestly welcomed it as a way out of all he could no longer handle.

Death's oblivion would be a mercy from the stranger in the bedroom down the hall.


End file.
